


Liars and Prisoners, and why Grantaire is neither

by mercuryhatter



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: F/M, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, canonverse, transition talk and dysphoria and a bit of self hate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 17:38:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercuryhatter/pseuds/mercuryhatter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire comes out as a woman, with Enjolras' help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liars and Prisoners, and why Grantaire is neither

Grantaire had been missing from the ABC meetings for three days when Combeferre took Enjolras aside.

  
 

“Someone should check on him. One or two days, I could see, but this isn’t like him.”

  
 

Enjolras had notice. It was hard not to notice the deafening silence from Grantaire’s usual corner, the lack of constant snide commentary… the usual weight of his stare missing from the back of Enjolras’ head.

  
 

Enjolras nodded to Combeferre.

  
 

“I’ll do it,” he murmured. “I’ll come get you if… something is wrong.”

  
 

They were both remembering the last time Grantaire had gone missing, when Courfeyrac had found him unconscious on the street, and he’d been subsequently bedridden for a week. Enjolras didn’t know how Grantaire had managed before he’d fallen in with Les Amis. He didn’t particularly want to think about it, about how easy it might have been for Grantaire to just slide off the map entirely, to die alone somewhere with absolutely no one knowing. So he left well before the meeting was to start, walking the short distance to Grantaire’s rooms.

  
 

“Grantaire,” he called, knocking sharply on the door. “R. It’s me. Are you in?”

  
 

When his words were met with silence, Enjolras tested the door and, finding it unlocked, peered inside.

  
 

“Go away, Themis,” came the answering groan.

  
 

“Themis today?” Enjolras asked, raising an eyebrow. He closed the door gently behind him and started to follow the sound of Grantaire’s voice.

  
 

“Yes, Themis. Don’t pretend not to know why it fits, I don’t feel like explaining,” Grantaire yelled. “Go away. I don’t want to see you or your pretty face or your cheekbones or your eyes or your hair…”

  
 

Enjolras moved into the bedroom. Grantaire was a lump of sheets and messy, too-long curls on the bed.

  
 

“Or your waist or your hips or—” Enjolras’ hand landed on where he guessed Grantaire’s shoulder to be and the monologue was cut off with something between a groan and a wail.

  
 

“Enjolras,” he said, his voice broken and muffled in the pillow.

  
 

“Grantaire.” His hand tightened lightly on Grantaire’s shoulder or possibly the back of his neck, it was hard to tell. Grantaire let out a long. slow sigh and turned his head enough to look up at Enjolras with one red-rimmed eye. At the first sight of him Grantaire moaned again and squeezed his eye shut. Something was mumbled into the pillow, something that sounded like “I can’t do it.”

  
 

“What can’t you do?”

  
 

“All of it,” Grantaire said with sudden vehemence, sitting up so quickly that Enjolras’ hand fell into his own lap. “Enjolras,  _Enjolras_ , I’m lying to you.” His voice broke and he looked down, unable to hold Enjolras’ cool blue gaze. “I’m lying to  _you_ , of all people, I—” He made another distressed noise and made to dive under the sheets again, but Enjolras grabbed his shoulder to arrest the movement, then moved one hand to the curve of Grantaire’s blotched red face, the other into the halo of his hair. Grantaire bit back a sob and closed his eyes, but pressed his face into Enjolras’ palm.

  
 

“Tell me what’s wrong, Rémi,” Enjolras said, his tone soft, but commanding— he didn’t expect Grantaire to wrench away from his with his loudest cry yet, shoving weakly at Enjolras with both hands, drawing his knees and the sheets up around him and moving as far away as possible without leaving the bed entirely. Enjolras stared after him, bewildered.

  
 

“ _Don’t_  call me— don’t— I can’t— I— I—” And he was shaking with sobs, and Enjolras was at a loss.

  
 

“Grantaire, what is  _wrong_?” he asked, almost pleading, with one hand stretched uselessly towards Grantaire.

  
 

“I am imprisoned by flesh, a minotaur in a labyrinth of bone, I am…” And Grantaire finally met Enjolras’ eyes, looking desperate and sad and scared.

  
 

“Enjolras, I am a woman. I am a woman, only the world of blood and bone has betrayed me, and if they knew, its inhabitants would abhor me, I was a nuisance and a cynic and a drunk and a liar before but now I will be an abomination and Enjolras, you  _cannot_  abhor me for this, not for the truth, I will not— I cannot— Enjolras?”

  
 

Enjolras had shed his coat upon entering Grantaire’s flat, and now his waistcoat was gone as well; he was working on the buttons of his shirt, and now he cast it away entirely before seizing both of Grantaire’s hands in his.

  
 

“Enjolras, are you hurt…?” Grantaire asked hesitantly, as Enjolras guided her hands to his bandaged chest. Grantaire’s eyes grew wide and her lips parted, releasing a sound that was caught between sobbing and laughter.

  
 

“You… you understand… you…” Grantaire collapsed into Enjolras’ arms, and he held her against his chest fiercely.

  
 

“You are  _not_  imprisoned,” he whispered heatedly into her ear, one hand curved at the back of her head, buried in curls, the other with fingers lined up between her ribs. “You are  _not_  an abomination, Grantaire, and you are  _not_  to be abhorred. You are not even to be faulted for choosing to hide yourself. Your body is not the way you wish it, but it does not have to control you. You can make it your own, you don’t have to lie a moment longer if you wish to be who you truly are, and I will  _kill_  anyone who tries to tell you that you can’t.”

  
 

Grantaire’s hand was still flat and trembling against Enjolras’ chest, and her head was tucked close into his neck, but she nodded into the skin of his shoulder, taking a deep, shaky breath.

  
 

“I thought perhaps… Rosette,” she said softly. “Instead of…”

  
 

“Yes,” Enjolras replied, understanding. Then a slow, wry smile crept across his face. “As in…?” Grantaire blushed.

  
 

“I am a creature of jests, Enjolras, I was entirely powerless to pass up the irony.”

  
 

Enjolras tipped his head back to laugh.

  
 

“You see? You have not hidden so much of yourself.” He drew Grantaire’s face up to smile at her. “I know you, Rosette.”

  
 

Slowly, Grantaire returned the smile, bringing her hand up to Enjolras’ where it was still in her hair and lacing their fingers together.

  
 

“You do.”

  
 

Enjolras brushed his free hand lightly over Grantaire’s cheek, then smoothed the pad of one finger over one of the creased bags beneath Grantaire’s eyes. He leaned forward to press their lips together, close-mouthed but passionate, until Grantaire parted Enjolras’ lips with a swipe of her tongue. Heads tilted to allow closer access, hands wandered, Enjolras pulled Grantaire into his lip, closer than he ever had before, and Grantaire melted into him. The kiss came to its natural end and Grantaire simply rested her head on Enjolras’ shoulder while Enjolras moved his hand lightly and rhythmically over her back, until at last she stopped shaking.

  
 

“Are you reassured?” he asked.

  
 

“Very much so,” she answered.

  
 

“Good.” Enjolras laid another kiss into her hair. “Now, where are your dresses?”

  
 

“My—?”

  
 

“Grantaire. I have been through this.”

  
 

“Of course,” Grantaire muttered, blushing. “Yes, I have…” SHe got up from the bed, keeping the sheet gathered around her, and dug into her closet, returning with a pile of undergarments and an inky blue dress.

  
 

“I have tried them, but I have not been quite able to do them up properly…”

  
 

“Stand still,” Enjolras instructed, picking up the chemise and pulling it over Grantaire’s hand, letting the sheet fall to the floor. He handed the stockings to her while he fiddled with the strings of the corset; once Grantaire stood straight again he pulled it tight around her waist, contouring her body. The underskirts came next, tired about her cinched waist with ribbons, then the dress itself, dropped over her head and buttoned up the back. Grantaire’s hair was still rather short for any sort of proper coif, but Enjolras picked at the curls anyway, pulling some to the back of her head and arranging others around her face. He fished a black velvet ribbon for his pocket, of the sort that he used to hold back his hair, and tied it lightly around Grantaire’s neck with a small bow, effectively erasing her Adam’s apple. At last, Enjolras dropped a kiss to the back of her neck and guided her with hands on her shoulders to face the mirror.

  
 

“There,” he said, leaning his chin on her shoulder. “You see? Not a prison at all.”

  
 

“Not at all,” Grantaire echoed, a soft look coming over her face that, although Enjolras had never seen it on Grantaire’s features before, still looked familiar to him. She gave a small, entirely genuine smile, one that Enjolras couldn’t help trace with the edge of his finger.

  
 

“So, Mlle. Rosette, will you consent to attend tonight’s meeting with me?” Enjolras asked with a smile of his own. Grantaire’s expression faded, and she looked at Enjolras nervously.

  
 

“Like this? But everyone else…”

  
 

“Combeferre and Courfeyrac know of me already/ The three of us shall ensure that you have no problems with anyone else,” Enjolras said firmly, stroking the inside of Grantaire’s wrist. “But if you are not ready, I will not force you.”

  
 

“No… no. I shall go.” Enjolras nodded solemnly and lifted her hand, kissing her palm. Their eyes locked and Enjolras inclined his head once more, reassuring.

  
 

Enjolras donned his clothes once more, Grantaire slipped into a pair of shoes and wrapped a bit of lace around her shoulders. They left her rooms, hands joined, and walked back to the Musain. Grantaire seemed skittish the whole way, but overjoyed still, and Enjolras once again recognized his own reactions of ages ago in her face, remembering the soaring joy and lingering terror of walking in the world as one’s true self for the first time.

  
 

At the door to the Musain’s back room, Grantaire hesitated. Enjolras pressed her hand.

  
 

“I will go first and explain.”

  
 

Grantaire nodded shakily and leaned against the wall, breathing deeply, as Enjolras went inside.

  
He consulted with Courfeyrac and Combeferre first, who nodded their understanding easily. They’d been there through everything with Enjolras himself; there was no need for further explanation. The three of them dispersed among the others: Enjolras spoke to Feuilly and Bahorel, Combeferre to Jehan, and Courfeyrac to Joly and Bossuet. Once all were informed, Enjolras went to retrieve Grantaire, and the only difference in anyone was that Jehan fairly swooned over the blue of her dress, immediately removing the flowers from his own hair and going to work lacing them into Grantaire’s.


End file.
